16 replies to this topic

[Peace2U]

Rant (sorry)
Why would PGI decide to release a patch in the middle of an event?
Here are some formulas to determine an answer:

#1. with the new portal, there is no 'gear' icon to take advantage of the direct patch download, and save some time. Event + Patch - Gear Icon = Frown
#2. each patch release comes with it's own share of problems - Event + Patch x Problems = Frown
#3. loosing time patching, instead of playing. Event +Patch / lost playing time x loss of event rewards = Frown

(Rant over)

[Lolo van Trollinger]

same dirt here. 3 people from my crew cant play event due to patcher issues. we are only 6.... thanks...

[eRiceIT]

Can you Right click the MechWarrior Online icon on the left side bar?

[Peace2U]

You can click the 'lines' on the upper left of the new portal, but no options to help.

[Tim East]

Peace2U, on 20 June 2017 - 12:47 PM, said:

Rant (sorry)
Why would PGI decide to release a patch in the middle of an event?
Here are some formulas to determine an answer:

#1. with the new portal, there is no 'gear' icon to take advantage of the direct patch download, and save some time. Event + Patch - Gear Icon = Frown
#2. each patch release comes with it's own share of problems - Event + Patch x Problems = Frown
#3. loosing time patching, instead of playing. Event +Patch / lost playing time x loss of event rewards = Frown

(Rant over)

So flippin' mad about this right now. The patch is downloading at the speed of like 20 kb/s for me right now when all I wanted to do was come home from work, download the stupid thing, and drive a medium for the silly event.

I tested my d/l speed from steam in parallel, and it went 6+ mb/s, so I know it's not my net. Grrr...

/edit: And the second I complain about it here, I go check my other rig and whatever was choking the bandwidth is gone and it is working fine. Weird.

Edited by Tim East, 20 June 2017 - 06:15 PM.

[Scam Newton]

I was kind of hoping they would do something with this cumbersome skill tree to make it easier to use. Guess that will be "down the road" or never.

[Krist Smith]

Peace2U, on 20 June 2017 - 05:31 PM, said:

You can click the 'lines' on the upper left of the new portal, but no options to help.

Are you saying the patch cache setting isn't working? The function should work identically to the old Patcher method.

Just to be clear, this is the process to set up the patch cache in the Portal (very similar to the old Patcher method):
-Create/select a directory on your system to act as the patch cache
-Download the patch zip files using your preferred method and place it in the cache directory
-In the Portal, make sure you have the corresponding game release selected
-Click the top-left options button (three lines) or right-click the release button on the left
-Click "Set Patch Cache Directory"
-Specify the directory you selected in the first step
-Now click patch (assuming you're out of date) and it will use the file from your cache (as long as it is the correct file - a hash check is done prior to using the file to make sure of this)

Please let me know if this isn't working as expected. My testing shows it works, but maybe there's a condition that I'm not taking into account.

[Peace2U]

Krist, thank you for your input.
No the 'patch cache' option did not appear in my new portal under the 3'menu' lines at the upper left.
Due to the expected slow download speed from the server, I had downloaded the patch files ahead of time.
When I realized the new portal did not have a method of changing the patch location like the 'gear' in the normal portal, I just copied both files to the 'mwoupdate' folder.
The patch utility must have seen them there and began extracting them right away.
I will admit, that the patch process was a bit quicker than the last one.
If you have any pull, please ask PGI to not release a patch in the middle of an event in the future.
It just raises the stress level.

Peace-out

[Krist Smith]

Peace2U, on 21 June 2017 - 09:26 PM, said:

Krist, thank you for your input. No the 'patch cache' option did not appear in my new portal under the 3'menu' lines at the upper left. Due to the expected slow download speed from the server, I had downloaded the patch files ahead of time. When I realized the new portal did not have a method of changing the patch location like the 'gear' in the normal portal, I just copied both files to the 'mwoupdate' folder. The patch utility must have seen them there and began extracting them right away. I will admit, that the patch process was a bit quicker than the last one. If you have any pull, please ask PGI to not release a patch in the middle of an event in the future. It just raises the stress level. Peace-out

Ok, that's really weird, since the "Set Patch Cache directory" option has been there since the earliest iterations of the Portal. It should be in the "Current Game Options" section (right under the "Run Repair Tool" item). If you're not seeing this, maybe you have an old version and it's not detecting update, or something along those lines.

As for the timing of patches vs. events, the best I can do is stress your point to the event planners. Our patch dates are usually set well before event planning takes place, so it's mostly on those planners to try to schedule things appropriately. At any rate, I will be sure to mention the conflict to them.

[DANKnuggz]

Problem with this event vs patching is this event is a month long and they're in the middle of adding and preparing to add a BUNCH of new stuff in the next month or so.... Unfortunately we cannot have game growth w/o it also sometimes conflicting with the actual use of this game. If they tried to run this event when we wouldn't have any patches for a month they wouldn't have time to fit it in for many months. Yes patching during an event sux, and even more so when you get errors like I got from the portal and had to go do the whole DL over but this time through steam. Right now with the patch schedule the way it is I'm pretty sure there just wasn't a nice convenient one month span they could put this event into.... We want events and we want patches but sometimes scheduling conflicts arise and we just have to deal.

[Peace2U]

I agree, Dan, and thanks for getting back to us on this, Krist.
Don't understand why the 'menu' in my portal does not provide the patch cache option.
In the event I received an 'older' portal release, or the original DL was corrupted, I tried re-downloading the portal installer and re-running it.
It reported that the portal was already installed and would not let me re-install it.
I cannot find a way to 'uninstall' the current portal, so I guess I'm stuck for now.
The old portal is still working - is there a way I could switch over to it for now?

Thanks for your input folks.
Peace-out

[Krist Smith]

Peace2U, on 22 June 2017 - 01:17 PM, said:

I agree, Dan, and thanks for getting back to us on this, Krist. Don't understand why the 'menu' in my portal does not provide the patch cache option. In the event I received an 'older' portal release, or the original DL was corrupted, I tried re-downloading the portal installer and re-running it. It reported that the portal was already installed and would not let me re-install it. I cannot find a way to 'uninstall' the current portal, so I guess I'm stuck for now. The old portal is still working - is there a way I could switch over to it for now? Thanks for your input folks. Peace-out

Uninstalling the Portal shouldn't be difficult, just the method of doing so might vary depending on what version of Windows you have. If you're using Windows 10, then all you need to do is find it in the start menu (either by finding it in the apps list or just typing "mwo portal" in the start menu itself). When you right-click the Portal icon, there should be an option to uninstall, just click that and follow the prompts. If you're using an earlier version of Windows, then you'll need to go to the "Programs and Features" or "Add/Remove Programs" (same thing, just different names depending on Windows version). In that list, just find and select MWO Portal and hit the uninstall button just above the list.

[Lolo van Trollinger]

Krist, the repair tool in the portal gets hung up if you had "no diskspace" failure, even after cleaning up (mozilla does huge temp files if open for a long time) with 20G free space.
the old repair tool worked to recover the install. i am glad i did not uninstall the old launcher.

any idea whats different in the way both work ? (one gets stuck, the other not)
any way to have it clean up tempfiles after botched patch install ?


the menu for the repair tool in portal on my machine is extremely unreadable, black on gray or something.

can you guys make the menu colours in the portal tool friendly for people to read, e.g. some dark backround, light colour font ?

Edited by Lolo van Trollinger, 22 June 2017 - 01:47 PM.

[Krist Smith]

Lolo van Trollinger, on 22 June 2017 - 01:45 PM, said:

Krist, the repair tool in the portal gets hung up if you had "no diskspace" failure, even after cleaning up (mozilla does huge temp files if open for a long time) with 20G free space. the old repair tool worked to recover the install. i am glad i did not uninstall the old launcher. any idea whats different in the way both work ? (one gets stuck, the other not) any way to have it clean up tempfiles after botched patch install ? the menu for the repair tool in portal on my machine is extremely unreadable, black on gray or something. can you guys make the menu colours in the portal tool friendly for people to read, e.g. some dark backround, light colour font ?

Sorry, you mean the menu in the Portal itself? The foreground (text) colour is set to a light blue (matching the blue used thoughout the rest of the Portal). I'm not sure why you'd be seeing it as a different colour. But, let's see if I can identify the issue and come up with a solid fix on my side. First question is always the same - which version of Windows are you using? If Win 10, have you gotten the Creators' Update yet? Did you recently install the Portal, or is it from last year's tournament?

In the meantime, I'll continue to explore the issue on my end to see if there's something else impacting the values set through code.

Edit:
Oh, also, if you're seeing the repair tool stall out once it gets to around file 23 or so, then it should just be a temporary stall (the exact duration of the stall would be determined by how many old patcher logs are lingering in the game's Bin32 folder). I have a new release with a fix for this, but the release is still in testing right now, no eta yet on when it'll be ready for deployment.

[Krist Smith]

Krist Smith, on 22 June 2017 - 02:05 PM, said:

Sorry, you mean the menu in the Portal itself? The foreground (text) colour is set to a light blue (matching the blue used thoughout the rest of the Portal). I'm not sure why you'd be seeing it as a different colour. But, let's see if I can identify the issue and come up with a solid fix on my side. First question is always the same - which version of Windows are you using? If Win 10, have you gotten the Creators' Update yet? Did you recently install the Portal, or is it from last year's tournament?

In the meantime, I'll continue to explore the issue on my end to see if there's something else impacting the values set through code.

Edit:
Oh, also, if you're seeing the repair tool stall out once it gets to around file 23 or so, then it should just be a temporary stall (the exact duration of the stall would be determined by how many old patcher logs are lingering in the game's Bin32 folder). I have a new release with a fix for this, but the release is still in testing right now, no eta yet on when it'll be ready for deployment.

Just figured out the text colour issue. Using a theme in Windows overrides some (not all) of the application-level colour settings in the Portal. I'll fix this now that I know the culprit.

[Krist Smith]

Peace2U, on 22 June 2017 - 01:17 PM, said:

I agree, Dan, and thanks for getting back to us on this, Krist.
Don't understand why the 'menu' in my portal does not provide the patch cache option.
In the event I received an 'older' portal release, or the original DL was corrupted, I tried re-downloading the portal installer and re-running it.
It reported that the portal was already installed and would not let me re-install it.
I cannot find a way to 'uninstall' the current portal, so I guess I'm stuck for now.
The old portal is still working - is there a way I could switch over to it for now?

Thanks for your input folks.
Peace-out

So I'm wondering if maybe you're having the same text issue as van Trollinger above: are you seeing _any_ options at all when you click the options ("three lines") button? I mean, besides the "Portal Options" and "Current Game Options" headers? If you're using a color theme in Windows, it may be overriding the text color and essentially making those menu items invisible.

[Leopardo]

guys I have question - I have game installed - with the old patcher (game in my own directory like D:\mwo) - and I'm launching game from old icon - but when the Portal came out - I launch it and there was the button PLAY. and I use it to launch the TEST server client. but after these 2 last patches -
when I launch the portal - there only 1 button INSTALL - so how can I tell the PORTAL that I have game installed (I have installed game in my own directory)

Edited by Leopardo, 23 June 2017 - 05:09 AM.